National roadways to hit nearly half-million km

China unveiled a new plan on Tuesday to expand its national road network to around 461,000 kilometers by 2035, as part of its larger move to build a modern, high-quality and comprehensive national transportation network, said officials and experts.

As China's economy is facing downward pressure and uncertainty both at home and abroad, they said construction of the national road network will also play a key role in stabilizing investment and economic growth as well as boosting connectivity between China and other markets along the Belt and Road.

The new plan, jointly released by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Transport, aims to bring the length of expressways to 162,000 km and that of highways to 299,000 km.

By 2035, China is set to basically build a modern national road network that is extensive, fully functional, efficient, green, intelligent and safe. Looking into 2050, China aims to build a world-class national road network that is in line with the modern, high-quality and comprehensive transport networks and advanced information networks.

Zhou Xiaoqi, deputy director of the NDRC's Department of Infrastructure Development, said the new plan will help support building China's new development paradigm of "dual-circulation" that takes the domestic market as the mainstay while letting domestic and overseas markets reinforce each other, and it will also support the development of new urbanization and help expand high-level opening-up.

Under the plan, China will further streamline its transportation network that links provinces, city clusters and counties, thus helping facilitate favorable circulation in China's economy, boost connectivity among city clusters and metropolitan areas, further strengthen connections between national roads and land ports, and form international road traffic passages between China and other countries in Northeast Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Zhou said at a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday.

Zhou highlighted the importance of infrastructure construction, saying that road construction investment plays a key role in stabilizing investment and growth.

He said that since the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), road construction investment has accounted for about 2.4 percent of China's GDP.

"The plan is not only a long-term investment that can enhance China's economic growth potential, but also marks a key move to stabilize the economy, employment, expectations and spur short-term growth," said Chen Jia, a researcher at the International Monetary Institute of the Renmin University of China.

As China's economy faces multiple pressures from a complicated external environment and COVID-19 outbreaks, it is necessary for the government to step up fiscal and monetary policy support, notably long-term investment in fields essential for people's livelihood and infrastructure investment, which will strongly help stabilize the economy and employment, Chen said.

Chen added that the intelligent national road network will also provide strong support for China's next moves to develop smart city networks and intelligent internet of things as well as embark on a path toward carbon peak and neutrality.

Citing the newly released plan, Yang Jinghao, chief economist at Concat Data Technology (Hangzhou) Co Ltd, said it means China will build new expressways of at least 30,000 km before 2035.

Infrastructure construction investment, an important part of fixed-asset investment, will play a key role in supporting stimulus-driven economic growth, Yang said.

He explained that the central government will usually allocate funds to build expressways, which will help ease financial pressure on local governments and boost local economies via implementing projects. And that will also allow local governments to attract more investment in industrial projects along the national road network.